Flying Security: Shackle All Passengers With Tazer-Like Bracelets

from the coffee,-tea-or-bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzt dept

And we were just talking about how the expected boom in air travel security technology never materialized, and along comes Bruce Schneier to point out a patent on a bracelet that passengers would be forced to wear, which could provide a debilitating shock at the decision of a crew member. And, yes, there's a company trying to commercialize this idea. I'm sure absolutely nothing might go wrong by strapping up all passengers with a potentially debilitating shock. Nothing at all...

Reader Comments

How to stop plane hi-jackings with 100% certainty and no violation of anyone's rights;

1. Design new planes where the passenger compartment is completely isolated from the rest of the plane. No access to the cockpit, the cargo hold, or any part of the plane's systems. The pilots will have their own bathroom and small galley, plus access to the rest of the plane, minus the passenger compartment.

2. All communication between the pilots and the rest of the flight crew will be by electronic audio and video, controlled from the cockpit. As part of the safety lecture at the start of the flight, all passengers will be informed that at the first sign of any sort of hi-jacking or attempt to coerce the pilots, all communications with the passenger compartment will be turned off from the cockpit. They will not, under any circumstances, be turned back on until the plane is safely on the ground.

3. Each passenger compartment will be equiped with the ability to release non-lethal knockout gas into the compartment, controlled from the cockpit. In the event of an attempted hi-jacking, the pilots will release the gas immediately after cutting off communications.

Of course the above wouldn't prevent bombings, but it would render hi-jacking attempts useless. If there's no access to the cockpit, nobody can commandeer the plane and if they can't talk to the pilots, there's no way to threaten them into doing what the hi-jackers want.

I admit that the third item, the use of knockout gas, might be controversial, but I don't think anyone would have a problem with the first two.